April 10, 2018 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Earth Day Books You Already Own

Earth Day is on the way!

If you’ve been following my adventures in special education for awhile, you probably already know that we don’t have a lot of “extra” time to celebrate holidays and special occasions. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to…but that I just have to be a bit more creative to fit it all in!

It should be no surprise that a perfectly chosen read aloud is my FAVORITE way to celebrate with my students. I have waayyyy more books than days of the school year and finding books with an Earth Day theme was note a tough task, at all.

In fact, you probably already own many of these titles already!

Starting next week, we will be exploring these titles to kick off discussions within our small groups. I also have a few pages in my Earth Day Literacy Packet to add to our independent centers (Word Work). My students’ favorite is the Making Words activity!

Looking for more ideas? Check out these past posts…

Everyday is Earth Day and Free Activity for Earth Day!

How will you be celebrating Earth Day in your classroom?

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March 21, 2018 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Favorite Easter Activities

I’m sharing our favorite Easter read aloud books and activities!

This is a throwback post to last Easter.

What can I say? Why mess with what works, lol! 😉

Happy Spring and Almost-Easter! We still have two weeks (9 more school days!) until Spring Break, so I’m bringing out the spring favorites to power through!

Easter always seems to arrive in a hurry in my classroom. We just finished St. Patrick’s Day, welcomed the first day of spring, as well as wrapped up Quarter 3 with testing. Then all of a sudden we only have two weeks left to add a little bunny fun before our week-long Spring Break!

Here’s what we’ve been up to…

My reading intervention book is enjoying our very first chapter book! This is the first book in the series featuring Zoey and Sassafras (affiliate link):

Dragons and Marshmallows (Zoey and Sassafras)

I cannot say enough good things about this book! Zoey has already become a heroine among my students and we can’t wait to follow her adventures with two more books.

Sidenote: I was so impressed with Asia Citro, that I also purchased one of her family fun science guides. It’s picture perfect and I’ll have to dedicate a whole blogpost to it!

Last week, we learned about the scientific method in Dragons and Marshmallows and this week, we decided to try it out on our own:

We used our new scientific journals (just like Zoey!) and will be capturing our jelly bean observations throughout the week. Stay tuned to see our results!

Quick note of advice: I created a journal to last the entire week, but I’ve already noticed – these jelly beans are most likely NOT going to make it through the week. My prediction? We will be documenting that all we have left by Friday are cups of colored water 😉

About once a week, we are take a break from Zoey and being scientists to enjoy an Easter-themed read aloud.

Here are the books I’ve been using the past couple years:

Last year was my first year reading The Easter Bunny’s Assistant and I have to admit, I wasn’t super impressed. But this year? My students LOVED the read aloud! Like begged-me-to-read-it-again loved. I’m not sure what that says about this year’s group, lol. I also found this adorable youtube video from Mrs. Clark for an engaging follow-up.

The Easter Bunny’s Assistant

Nobunny’s Perfect is a cute and simple read aloud that provides a nice reminder that we all make mistakes (a little bunny-growth-mindset!):

Nobunny’s Perfect

And of course, we read about the “Old Lady” – a beloved character with my group!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick!

In addition to our holiday books and jelly bean science, here are a few more activities we are enjoying for Easter:

Please hop over to my store for a closer look at activities for Easter!

Have a fantastic week and Happy Easter! 🙂

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February 12, 2018 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Valentine Sweets Literacy Learning

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Photo from Speaking of Images

Holidays are such a fun time in a first grade classroom, however, our curriculum doesn’t anticipate sugar-highs and sweets-obsessed behaviors when planning the scope and sequence, lol.

In other words, the show must go on…even during Valentine’s Day, Halloween, full moons, etc.!

Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty creative in combining holiday fun AND the important learning we are focusing on.

The result… I’ll let the pictures explain it!

“Smitten” is our February version of our favorite game “Blast!” This game NEVER gets old with my firsties and these graphics lend themselves to extra sweet fun!

My entire Blast bundle features cards focused on literacy skills that move along our learning continuum: letter identification, letter-sound correspondence, CVC decoding, CVCe, and sight words. By February, we are differentiating the game a tad with the CVC cards in one of my groups and CVCe in the other. The sight word cards were added to independent literacy centers (yay!) and the letter cards stayed safely tucked away in storage (thank goodness, we’re past it!).

Another activity for sight words is my NWEA MAP Testing Primary Reading colorful sight word pages. There are six pages to choose from for each of the six themes (whole or small groups can use the same page or mix it up), plus blank templates to customize. Add bingo dabbers or crayons and the activity is ready to PLAY!

Of course, there are so many sweet read aloud books for Valentine’s Day, too! I shared a few of our favorites last year in this post:

Valentine Books

We started Valentine books a week early!

Photo by Snapshots and Smiles

As I write this post to share our Valentine read-alouds, I realize we really need to add to our repertoire!

Please leave a comment with a tried and true recommendation for a sweet-themed book!

Thank you! 🙂

Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink

This is hands-down our favorite Valentine book! My students were appalled that Gilbert pulled this stunt (you’ll have to read it to find out!). This book is definitely secure at #1 on our Valentine book list!

The Biggest Valentine Ever

This is a sweet and simple book that lends itself to the big event…making valentines. My intervention group will be completing themed projects in their classroom, but we didn’t want to miss out. I tied in a colorful activity with our spelling words for the week. It’s tough to see, but my students decorated a color-by-code spelling paper and we turned them into decorations 🙂

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose!

No holiday is complete in our resource room without a story about the “old lady.” I love emphasizing story elements using this series because my students are so shocked to realize many of the pages feature the inside of her stomach – what a great setting!

The Day It Rained Hearts

Fantastic book for Valentine’s Day and beyond! I save this book for February 14 and we follow it up with conversation heart activities ♥

Are there any must-have titles we need to add to our Valentine book list?

Thank you for reading!

How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day with your students?

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December 18, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Stink! Stank! Stunk!

Happy Grinch Day!

Happy Grinch Day from Positively Learning Blog

Last week, my students were greeted by a BIG, GREEN surprise!

Happy Grinch Day from Positively Learning Blog

It begin with this discovery…

Happy Grinch Day from Positively Learning Blog

Uh-Oh! Watch out Candy Man (the rather unfortunate name of this year’s elf)!

I’ve had a lot of fun with Grinch Day in the past, but I had to get rather creative this year.

My students are doing SO well in Guided Reading (we just jumped up TWO reading levels since September!) but we can’t simply stop instruction because of one GREEN character.

SO, I decided to incorporate all the green fun into our reading.

The result was a very Green, GRINCH-y Guided Reading!

Grinch Day Guided Reading by Positively Learning Blog

We kept many of our same Guided Reading activities, with a very Grinch-y twist!

Here’s just a few of our literacy activities:

Read and Find – pocket chart activities

Red Light, Green Light

Green Screen Slides (Phonemic Awareness and Phonics/Decoding)

Grinch Writing and Mentor Sentences

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Listening Comprehension (of course!)

PLUS many more GREEN details, from all our pencils turning green, green finger lights, sensory bins…

You can see all the fun we had in my most recent YouTube video, or catch the replay on Facebook Live here!

Grinch Day Guided Reading by Positively Learning Blog

YouTube: Positively Learning

Are you ready to incorporate some GREEN December Day fun into your own literacy groups!

Positively Learning Blog Grinch Day! Green December Day Guided Reading

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December 1, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Secret Snowflake

Spread joy around your school with quick (and free) “Secret Snowflake” notes!

Here’s a free holiday set of 24 mini-joy notes to spread “Secret Snowflake” cheer at your school throughout the holiday season!

Simply print and cut out the colorful notes! #quickandeasy

I like to use these anonymously and add a small token treat, like one K-cup, candy, or tiny snack.

The notes in this set are intended for teachers and school staff, but they are also perfect for students, parents, volunteers…even neighbors!

If you know of someone who needs some extra joy (who doesn’t?!?), please hop right over here to download your free set!

Thanks for all your support 🙂

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October 23, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

October Books!

I’m sharing the spooky (and not-so-spooky) books we are enjoying during October!

This blogpost is a throwback to last fall… you can read the original post here (or just scroll down!)

October Read Aloud Books!

We kicked off with a new-to-us book that would be perfect for any time of year:

Night of the Veggie Monster

I discovered this ADORABLE read aloud from Paige Bessick, the talented teacher-author of Our Elementary Lives. She has an interactive read aloud packet (here!) featuring this not-so-spooky read aloud. My students were definitely making connections as they listened – they are no strangers to tantrums 😉

Owl Moon

This is book is not intended to be spooky in the Halloween sense, but the descriptive writing lends to a “haunted” feeling as you can picture this father-daughter pair quietly navigating the forest at night. Expect many call and response owl hootings for the rest of the day if you read aloud this beautiful story!

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

This book is a MUST read! There’s also an youtube video clip I show every year…but beware: once you play it, you will NOT be able to get this song out of your head! Trust me.

Room on the Broom

Yup, we went there already…I was planning on pumpkin read alouds for this week (we have enough for two weeks!), but my students saw the cover displayed and requested this one! I absolutely cannot say no when my sweet students ask to be read to. This is a rough and tumble group and they are requesting to listen intently to a read aloud? It makes my teacher heart so happy!

We enjoyed this book as a read aloud and a writing activity (accompanying writing list can be found here):

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more titles…

*The beautiful candy corn photograph is from Amy Candler Photography

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April 1, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

April Fool Fun!

Happy April 1st!

Thank you Sarah Pecorino Illustration for the hilarious “dot dudes” graphics 🙂

Do you celebrate April Fool with your students?

This year April 1st arrives on a Saturday (blessing in disguise!), but that didn’t stop my firsties from having fun!

On Friday, we read April Fool! Watch Out at School! (Gilbert) by Diana deGroat (affiliate link). My students were engaged 100%…the storyline really played to their strengths, haha. I’m pretty sure every general educator was NOT feeling the love as my littles returned to class with a whole new repertoire of pranks. I should probably bring a coffee treat on Monday 🙂

Here’s the evidence:

But no worries, I got them back April Fool style!

They returned after lunch and I announced that we had a spelling test and IF we showed grit and finished early, I had a new game to teach them!

They quickly got into their spelling test “positions” which include self-selected seats…some students choose a table, some students prefer a floor cushion (wobble seat) with a whiteboard slant “desk” and some students like to lie on their bellies.

I passed out the papers, put on a straight face, and announced that they should do their best because this test will be graded and put on their report card. No grumbles…yet!

Then I began reading these words and reminded them to use their strategies (stretch out the sounds, use the sound-spelling card visuals, word wall, etc.):

It was AWESOME to see my students’ responses! I thought they were especially gritty!

#yougogirl!

I was cracking up about some of the things I was hearing…one student asked to borrow a dictionary (woohoo!) and another student consoled another by saying “it’s okay, just use stretchy snake!” hahaha.

When I announced “just 54 more words to go!” one student asked what would happen if we didn’t finish. I told him we would have to come in on Saturday! They lasted until word #7. I had one student that looked like he was actually getting upset and I definitely didn’t want that, so #8 became “April Fool!” Don’t worry, afterward he thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious! I would never ever stress my students on purpose, it was for fun and they really enjoyed it. And we did follow up with a joyful game of “scoot” – it was a great wrap up to our learning week!

What do you do to celebrate April Fool?

Here’s a few more ideas from a past blogpost…plus an idiom freebie! Enjoy 🙂

April Fool’s! Idioms and BIG Words

Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day!!

Besides cracking a few jokes (first grade style), we won’t be purposely celebrating April 1st as a special day at my school. My students are precious and so sweet, but a few jokes could seriously derail our focus on instruction. But I did want to share a couple things I have been using that my students have loved!

BIG Words

Have you seen these from Anthropologie?!

A coworker was using them…they are absolutely hilarious! She also teaches special education and now her students are walking around calling each other “rapscallions” and other such terms. That’s probably not the purpose of the cards, but they are really fun! I couldn’t find them in the stores (but found TONS of other things), so I ordered them online. They are a must have!

Idioms

We don’t teach idioms as a standard, but I have been using them similar to the BIG words flashcards. My students benefit from any and all extra vocabulary and conversational skills. They LOVE these cards and are little mimics throwing these expressions around while working in small groups (again, probably not what they are intended for).

I can just imagine what my students’ families are saying about their teacher!

Here’s an idiom freebie to try out – perfect for a lil’ April Fool’s FUN:

These are extra pages that are coordinated with my Idioms Activity Pack:

The awesome idiom graphics are from ATLTeacher. My students love his artwork!

I would love to hear how you celebrate April Fool’s Day with your students!

Thanks for reading 🙂

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March 28, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Activities for Easter

Here are my tried and true activities for Easter!

Happy Spring and Almost-Easter! We still have two weeks (9 more school days!) until Spring Break, so I’m bringing out the spring favorites to power through!

Here’s what we’ve been up to…

My reading intervention book is enjoying our very first chapter book! This is the first book in the series featuring Zoey and Sassafras (affiliate link):

Dragons and Marshmallows (Zoey and Sassafras)

I cannot say enough good things about this book! Zoey has already become a heroine among my students and we can’t wait to follow her adventures with two more books.

Sidenote: I was so impressed with Asia Citro, that I also purchased one of her family fun science guides. It’s picture perfect and I’ll have to dedicate a whole blogpost to it!

Last week, we learned about the scientific method in Dragons and Marshmallows and this week, we decided to try it out on our own:

We used our new scientific journals (just like Zoey!) and will be capturing our jelly bean observations throughout the week. Stay tuned to see our results!

About once a week, we are take a break from Zoey and being scientists to enjoy an Easter-themed read aloud.

Here are the books I’ve been using the past couple years:

The Easter Bunny’s Assistant

Nobunny’s Perfect is a cute and simple read aloud that provides a nice reminder that we all make mistakes (a little bunny-growth-mindset!):

Nobunny’s Perfect

And of course, we read about the “Old Lady” – a beloved character with my group!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Chick!

In addition to our holiday books and jelly bean science, here are a few more activities we are enjoying for Easter:

Please hop over to my store for a closer look at activities for Easter!

Have a fantastic week 🙂

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March 12, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Lucky!

Are you feeling lucky?

If you are looking for some “lucky” deals to support your students, check out #SpEdisLucky at Teachers Pay Teachers! There are some fantastic dollar deals to celebrate St Patrick’s Day (and beyond):

If you hop over to my store, you’ll find the following products on sale for only $1.00 through March 13:

Pinch Me! Assessment Cards $4.00 $1.00

These quick, hands-on assessment cards will provide a quick “temperature check” on how your students are understanding during whole or small group instruction. There are over 25 options and a FREE set in the preview!

Shamrock Sentence Builders $2.50 $1.00

Simply print and add to your Guided Reading center! This week, my students have been working collaboratively to build lucky sentences during Daily 5: Work on Writing. There’s also a second activity included for Work Work!

What lucky activities are you doing this month with your students?

Please check back soon for our favorite Irish read aloud books and activities!

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February 9, 2017 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Valentine Books

We started Valentine books a week early!

Photo by Snapshots and Smiles

As I write this post to share our Valentine read-alouds, I realize we really need to add to our repertoire!

Please leave a comment with a tried and true recommendation for a sweet-themed book! Thanks 🙂

Are there any must-have titles we need to add to our Valentine book list?

789 total views, no views today

Earth Day is on the way!

How will you be celebrating Earth Day in your classroom?

I’m sharing our favorite Easter read aloud books and activities!

Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The result… I’ll let the pictures explain it!

We started Valentine books a week early!

Are there any must-have titles we need to add to our Valentine book list?

Thank you for reading!

How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day with your students?

Happy Grinch Day!

Last week, my students were greeted by a BIG, GREEN surprise!

It begin with this discovery…

Uh-Oh! Watch out Candy Man (the rather unfortunate name of this year’s elf)!

The result was a very Green, GRINCH-y Guided Reading!

We kept many of our same Guided Reading activities, with a very Grinch-y twist!

You can see all the fun we had in my most recent YouTube video, or catch the replay on Facebook Live here!

Are you ready to incorporate some GREEN December Day fun into your own literacy groups!

Spread joy around your school with quick (and free) “Secret Snowflake” notes!

I’m sharing the spooky (and not-so-spooky) books we are enjoying during October!

October Read Aloud Books!

Happy April 1st!

Do you celebrate April Fool with your students?

Here’s the evidence:

Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day!!

BIG Words

Idioms

Here are my tried and true activities for Easter!

Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Are you feeling lucky?

We started Valentine books a week early!

Are there any must-have titles we need to add to our Valentine book list?

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